Attendance

Highfield Community Primary Attendance Policy

We firmly believe that regular attendance at school is crucial in raising standards of education and ensuring that every child meets their full potential. Missing out on lessons leaves children vulnerable to falling behind. We place a great emphasis on attendance in order to ensure that:

every child has access to the full-time education that they are entitled to

we act early to recognise patterns of absence

we maintain high levels of attendance and reduce the amount of persistence absence.

We have introduced several initiatives to highlight the importance of attending school. These are outlined below:

A class acheiving 100% attendance for a full week at school will be rewarded with a non-uniform day on the following Monday. .

All children who achieve 99% attendance or above will be rewarded with a visit at the end of each term.

Mrs Doherty and Mrs Dolan (Parent Governor) analyse the school attendance data on a half termly basis and identify children who have lower than 92% attendance. The parents of these children will be invited into school to discuss this. This is an opportunity to identify any issues or problems that may be preventing the child attending school. Often the school will work alongside the Legal Intervention Team in this matter.

We are fully aware that children do become ill and often have appointments that are within the school day. The purpose of these initiatives is not to punish these children but to avoid having children staying off school unnecessarily or to stay off for longer than is needed. These new initiatives have had an extremely positive impact on our attendance data.

Our latest data shows that these new initiatives are having an excellent impact on our attendance. The attendance for the academic year 2016/17 was 97%. We are delighted that our attendance figures continue to rise and part of this is presumably as a result of the new advice from the Government stating that holidays will not be authorised during term time unless there are exceptional circumstances. Information regarding this has been sent out to parents and can be requested at the school office.

Lateness also has a big impact on your child's education. The school policy is that registers open at 8:55am and close at 9:30, this follows advice from the local authority. Children who arrive in school after the register has closed will be marked as an unauthorised absence for that session. Children who arrive late, but before the register is closed, will be marked as "late" but will still receive their mark.

The attendance trips are always enjoyed by by both pupils and staff and the children are always a credit to take out of school. In the past we have visited The Side cinema for a private viewing of Elf, Jumbo Jungle and ten pin bowling at the Metro Centre. Watch out for photographs of this years attendance trips on this page.